With MonieWorld shipped, I led two independent discovery programmes — one on diaspora spending behaviour, one on the UK–Nigeria SME corridor — to determine where the product should go, or should not go next.
After MonieWorld launched in April 2025, the product had strong early numbers but open questions about where to go next. I independently scoped and ran two discovery programmes — not as a structured either/or decision, but to follow the threads that seemed most worth pulling: how diaspora users actually manage money across their full UK lifecycle, and whether the UK–Nigeria corridor held any opportunity for business payments.
Both studies were run without external research support. The goal wasn't just to gather user quotes — it was to generate evidence strong enough to inform the roadmap.
Both concluded in May 2025. One opened up new product directions. The other closed one down.
The Spend study revealed a window to acquire users before they land in the UK, reframing the acquisition strategy around the full diaspora lifecycle.
The study recruited 8 participants — one existing MonieWorld user and seven potential users in the target demographic. Sessions ran 60 minutes each and covered all financial products: daily spending, saving behaviour, credit, cross-border transfers, and the Nigerian financial context they arrived from.
The core hypothesis going in was that MonieWorld's opportunity sat in the UK remittance moment. What the research revealed was bigger: the most critical moment in a diaspora user's financial life happens before they arrive.
Six of eight participants used Revolut as their primary day-to-day spending account — not because they loved it, but because it was the easiest card to get before they landed. This established a pattern: the financial relationships formed in the first weeks in the UK tend to stick. MonieWorld was entering the picture too late.
The credit score finding required digging. On the surface, six participants said they wanted a credit card — and taken at face value, that looks like a product signal. But pressing further revealed something different: what they actually wanted was to build a credit history for a potential mortgage, years down the line. A credit card was simply the only mechanism they knew of. It wasn't the goal — it was the only tool they'd heard of for reaching it.
"I got Revolut before I even landed. My friend just sent me the link."Participant, Nigerian diaspora · arrived 2022
"I don't like owing money."Participant, Nigerian diaspora · arrived 2023
LemFi dominated remittance for most participants, but revealed a consistent point of friction: when recipients in Nigeria received money, the sender name shown was "LemFi" — not the sender's own name. For users sending money to parents or family, this eroded trust on the Nigerian side. Recipients would call to ask who had sent the money. This was a recurring, specific complaint — and a genuine differentiator available to MonieWorld.
Pre-arrival acquisition strategy: Partner with or embed within resources Nigerian students and professionals use before leaving Nigeria — IELTS prep platforms, UK visa forums, relocation checklists. The goal is to establish MonieWorld as the financial starting point for the UK journey before Revolut or Monzo can.
Credit score reporting service: Don't build a credit card. Build a feature that reports rent payments, consistent remittance behaviour, and savings patterns to UK credit bureaus. This addresses the real job-to-be-done and avoids competing in a product category with high regulatory overhead.
Sender name transparency: Ensure the recipient in Nigeria always sees the sender's real name — not a platform intermediary. This is a trust signal that LemFi fails on consistently.
A credit card product. Users are already using credit cards purely as a tool to build history — they don't want another one. The desire is credit score reporting, not credit issuance. Adding a credit card would create regulatory complexity and dilute the product's focus without addressing the actual need.
This study started from a question raised in a leadership strategy session. The observation was compelling on the surface: personal remittance accounts for only a small slice of the total £1.9B UK–Nigeria transfer volume. If MonieWorld could move into B2B cross-border payments, the market upside could be significantly larger. It was the kind of hypothesis that sounds right — and that's exactly why it needed testing.
I went away and did two things: sized the market properly, and went out to listen to how businesses actually move money between the UK and Nigeria today.
The SME study delivered a clear signal in the opposite direction: the corridor was too thin to build on. I brought the findings directly to the business — and the roadmap was revised accordingly.
UK imports from Nigeria total approximately £1.9 billion — but 75%+ of this is crude oil and petroleum products. The non-commodity corridor (food at £27M, fashion at £8M, textiles and services) totals around £35 million. That is the entire addressable market for a payments business operating in this corridor.
For context: 256,400 VAT-registered UK businesses import from anywhere in the world. Only approximately 700 import from Nigeria. The market is not undiscovered — it's simply thin.
The 3 qualifying businesses used personal remittance products — LemFi, TransferGo — for their B2B payments. Not because they lacked better options, but because transaction volumes were low enough that personal apps were sufficient. None expressed strong pain points. None were looking for a dedicated B2B solution. The urgency and friction that typically validates a B2B product opportunity simply wasn't there.
"We just use TransferGo. The amounts are small enough — it's not worth switching to something else."UK fashion importer · sourcing from Lagos
"Our supplier is flexible. We send when we can and they're fine with it. There's no urgency on either side."UK food distributor · Nigeria corridor
There is no compelling B2B opportunity in the UK–Nigeria payments corridor at this time. The addressable market is too small, the businesses operating in it don't have strong enough payment pain points to switch platforms, and the regulatory overhead of building a B2B product would not be justified by the revenue potential.
Recommendation to the business: do not pursue the SME pivot. Maintain consumer focus and invest instead in the pre-arrival acquisition strategy and credit score features identified in the Spend study.